Traffic signals have long been used to regulate the flow of traffic at intersections. Generally, traffic signals have relied on timers or vehicle sensors to determine when to change traffic signal lights, thereby signaling alternating directions of traffic to stop, and others to proceed.
Emergency vehicles, such as police cars, fire trucks and ambulances generally have the right to cross an intersection against a traffic signal. Emergency vehicles have in the past typically depended on horns, sirens and flashing lights to alert other drivers approaching the intersection that an emergency vehicle intends to cross the intersection. However, due to hearing impairment, air conditioning, audio systems and other distractions, often the driver of a vehicle approaching an intersection will not be aware of a warning being emitted by an approaching emergency vehicle.
Traffic control preemption systems assist authorized vehicles (police, fire and other public safety or transit vehicles) through signalized intersections by making preemption requests to the intersection controllers that control the traffic lights at the intersections. The intersection controller may respond to the preemption request from the vehicle by changing the intersection lights to green in the direction of travel of the approaching vehicle. This system improves the response time of public safety personnel, while reducing dangerous situations at intersections when an emergency vehicle is trying to cross on a red light. In addition, speed and schedule efficiency can be improved for transit vehicles.
There are presently a number of known traffic control preemption systems that have equipment installed at certain traffic signals and on authorized vehicles. One such system in use today is the OPTICOM® system. This system utilizes a high power strobe tube (emitter), located in or on the emergency vehicle, that generates light pulses at a predetermined rate, typically 10 Hz or 14 Hz. A receiver, which includes a photodetector and associated electronics, is typically mounted on the mast arm located at the intersection and produces a series of voltage pulses, the number of which are proportional to the intensity of light pulses received from the emitter. The emitter generates sufficient radiant power to be detected from over 2500 feet away. The conventional strobe tube emitter generates broad spectrum light. However, an optical filter is used on the detector to restrict its sensitivity to light only in the near infrared (IR) spectrum. This minimizes interference from other sources of light.
Intensity levels are associated with each intersection approach to determine when a detected vehicle is within range of the intersection. Vehicles with valid security codes and a sufficient intensity level are reviewed with other detected vehicles to determine the highest priority vehicle. Vehicles of equivalent priority are selected in a first come, first served manner. A preemption request is issued to the controller for the approach direction with the highest priority vehicle.
The emitter on a vehicle may be configurable so that it is associated with a vehicle class, vehicle identifier, and a government agency, for example. The emitter may encode this information in the light pulses for processing by the intersection equipment. The intersection equipment may use this information in prioritizing preemption requests and logging preemption data.
The Opticom™ 794H LED emitter from Global Traffic Technologies, LLC, is an example of an emitter that generates pulses of infrared light that encode preemption requests. The 794H LED emitter is also configurable via an infrared interface and a handheld infrared remote coding unit.